


Stolen

by StarRose



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, Athelstan/OC rape, Blood, Bondage, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Ragnar is there for the H/C, Rape, Torture, as is Lagertha, dark!fic, faith questioning, general Viking family feels, it'll be in this one, just think of everything in a dark fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:24:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarRose/pseuds/StarRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[FIC ABANDONED]</p><p>Ragnar had once been given the option of taking one treasure with him from his first trip back from England.  He had chosen the priest, but after Ragnar was set free from the accusation of killing the Earl's brother, Haraldson would like his property back to sell it on to the highest bidder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because we're all masochists and we like to harm the cute ones.

** Stolen **

There were voices, a distant faded murmur of voices slowly piercing through the veil of nightmare riddled sleep. As he gradually became more aware of the conscious world his senses felt what he had now grown frighteningly accustomed to. The dirty, cold hard stone flooring beneath his equally dirty, cold and naked body, the smell of rotten food, sick, sweat, blood and stale semen filling his nostrils. His mouth was bone dry, nothing but the after taste of his master’s frequent abuse of his mouth and throat.

The pain grew even more as he returned to the world of the awake, the damage along his chest where he’d been beaten with fist and any other item that had been nearby at the time, black bruises throbbing so painfully, never allowed to fully heal before he was beaten again. The whelps of broken flesh along his back where he’d been whipped, more bruises in the shapes of fingerprints along his hips and thighs, the cuts on his chapped lips and cheeks from his master’s fury. His wrists and neck bled from chafing rope, the fingers on his left hand were in permanent pain where they’d been smashed, broken, and left to heal in a strange twisted shape.

None of this compared though to the aching, stinging pain between his legs. The constant reminder of disgusting images and terrible _terrible_ humiliation, the most disturbing sickening gut twisting feeling of revulsion and guilt and terror and why _why_ _WHY_ what had he _done_ to deserve this??? Why had God spared him at the Monastery only to torture him now? Had he not been a good Priest?  Had he not given himself in body and spirit to the church and sacrificed everything, even the loss of his own family, to serve in Gods name? Was it not enough? Had he done something so unforgiving that he deserved to see hell before he even died? Why, why……. _why…..I don’t understand….._

God never answered, though he couldn’t remember when he’d last prayed to him any more.

Voices…..voices….

_...- stan.”…._

He heard a groan fall from his own lips, distant like the voices, ears ringing and suddenly there was light, flickering light through the forever darkness seeping through his eyelids.  It pierced his sore eyes as he tried to prise them open, harder to do with a swollen black right eye halting movement, his vision swimming before him.

_…-thelstan.”…._

There were gentle fingers that suddenly touched his bare shoulder, and on immediate instinct he flinched hard away, scrapping his beaten body a few inches back to push against the wall bringing his knees to his chest in a futile attempt at protection. Trapped, always trapped, body trembling in fear and cold and _please…Lord in heaven….no…let me rest a little longer………..please……_

His eyes closed tightly again, waiting for more pain, waiting for the punch or the kick in punishment for flinching away, waiting to be grabbed by the large coarse hands of his master, flipped over onto his stomach and have his head smashed down onto the hard floor while his hips were raised, the rope around his neck pulled tight to strangle him into compliance…

“Athelstan.”

But that wasn’t the voice of his master.

His eyes cracked open once more, slowly, trying to focus in the swimming mess of shapes and light before him.  He saw a blurred hand reach out and brush a lock of his longer, filthier hair away from his face. He didn’t flinch away this time, and as he stared at the image of the hands owner his vision gradually focused.

He remembered those eyes…those intense, blue eyes.

“Ra…nar…?”

His voice sounded and felt like he’d swallowed a thousand needles, so parched for water, so abused.

Ragnar smiled gently, but it was a smile that did not reach his eyes, eyes that flickered down Athelstan’s tortured body with a fiery anger Athelstan could only imagine would be on a battlefield facing a hundred enemies.

Then suddenly, before he could even register the overwhelming relief that flooded through his every vein, Athelstan began to sob uncontrollably. Tears formed clean streaks down his dirty bloody face, dripping off his nose where he lay on his side. His mangled left hand moved outwards jaggedly and weakly across the floor, dragging his other hand along with it where they were tied together with only an inch of rope between them.  He found Ragnar’s left knee where he knelt beside him, and though he could do nothing but press the backs of his shaking fingers against it, the nerve endings destroyed unable to feel the touch, at least he could see he was touching a man that didn’t want to hurt him.

_That didn’t want to hurt him._

His vision was blurred again but this time with the tears, he saw more figures appear behind Ragnar, the strong features and blond hair of Lagertha, her face twisted into one of shocked revulsion, and for the first time Athelstan wondered what he looked like. How long had he even been here? Floki was there too, holding the source of the light, a flaming torch, and…someone else, maybe…Leif?...was that his name? He couldn’t remember….everything was so……..so tired…………….blurred….

“It is alright Athelstan.” Despite the fire in his eyes Ragnar’s voice was soft, and he gently took Athelstan’s broken hand in his own, clasping it protectively, watching as his once innocent priest cried desperately onto the stone floor.

“I’ve got you.”

\-----

**_Six months earlier…._ **

"You are a good Christian."

It was such a cute and happy drunk smile Athelstan had given him at those words that Ragnar could do nothing but grin back at his little celibate Christian priest. The celebration in the Lothbrok household only was just beginning, Ragnar had escaped penalty from Earl Haraldson and the night was still young with plenty of drink and Floki’s entertaining stories to go around.

Unfortunately it hadn’t lasted for very long.

Earl Haraldson's men had come, murdering Eric in cold blood, and though Ragnar and his men had fought them off, killing them and then presenting them at Haraldson's door in a mess of bloodied bodies on a cart…it seems they must have missed someone.

When Ragnar returned, confident in his win though mourning Eric’s pointless death and knowing a war with Haraldson had now begun, he'd gone to give a crooked smile of reassurance to his priest who he knew would be nearby, watching him as always.  

But Athelstan wasn't there.  

Ragnar had asked his men, Lagertha and his children, but no one had seen him since just before the fight.  He searched the village and the forest nearby for days, calling out his name, and finally the unwanted thought came that maybe the priest had used the confusion to finally attempt escape.

Ragnar had returned home with furrowed brow, both annoyance and a sadness he did not realise he would feel, until something on the floor by the door glittering in the firelight finally caught his attention.  It was Athelstan's silver cross that he wore around his neck.  The cord it hung from had been sliced in half, lying in separate pieces on the ground, dried blood glistening red upon the silver.  Ragnar carefully picked up the cross, turning it over in his hand. Even if it had not had blood on it Ragnar now knew what had happened, for Athelstan would never have left of his own free will without his cross.  Ragnar’s hand clenched into a fist around it, pressing the small piece of metal into his palm.

Someone had taken him.

Someone had stolen his priest.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each chapter is split into two, separated by a line. One half will be Athelstan's story of what he went through, the other what happens after Ragnar saves him.

 

He awoke with a start, his head pounding against his skull.  He only had a split second to wonder where he was before he realised he’d woken up whilst standing, his wrists tied by rope to a circle of metal embedded into the stone wall above his head.  He tried to look up, confused, his arms aching desperately where his body had been sagging against the wall unconscious. There was pain in his chest and as well as his head too.  Head, from the blow that had knocked him out, a small trickle of dried blood down the side of his face, and chest from……ahh yes, this would be why he was half naked, his chest bare after someone had wrapped  a long ravel of cloth around it to stop the bleeding from his wound. 

Someone….someone else….at home, with Ragnar, as the fight began…Athelstan tried to think, but his head hurt so much. As he tried to remember he took a quick moment to take a look around the room he was in.  He was alone, the room small and square with other circular metal hooks on the walls around him and nothing else but a heavy wooden door. There was no clue as to where he was. There was however a strange taste in his mouth, and he ran his tongue against his lips, frowning at the oddly…salty taste, but it wasn’t anything like he’d tasted before. He ignored it for now.

Think….think….Earl Haraldson’s men had raided the house, Athelstan knew he was of no use in a fight and had backed up against the wall out of the way but….there was a sword, some random enemy had sliced his sword sideways across his chest, enough to cut through his clothing and wound deep enough for it to start to bleeding profusely. It hurt, oh God in heaven it had hurt, he’d never been wounded like this in any way at the monastery, this was… _argh_ , he’d clenched his teeth sliding back against the wall, the enemy thinking nothing of him and turning his attention to more dangerous men.  Athelstan tried to cover the large wound with his arm, staggering back up again eyeing the door and only exit with one eye.

He’d ducked and weaved through the fighting bodies and very almost reached the door before he felt something slide down his chest that wasn’t blood and it startled him.  He looked down, his small silver cross had been cut from its cord where the sword had sliced against him, and now lay on the floor by the door where it had slid from his clothes.

Athelstan let his head fall back against the stone wall, closing his eyes with a small groan of disbelief.  If only he hadn’t tried to pick up the cross, if only he hasn’t paused for that moment.

As he’d bent down to pick it up someone from outside the door had hit him over the head, he didn’t know who or with what, all he knew was that someone had caught him before he even hit the ground, then blackness.

He sighed against his wall. He needed to remember to order his main concerns next time something like that happened, but still...he felt very bare without that cross resting against his heart, as though part of his soul was missing. He didn’t like it at all. Still he had no choice but to take another look around the empty room, ears straining to hear any sound, pretending his heart wasn’t racing in a growing panic.  There were voices, quite far off, and he couldn’t make out what they were saying.  He tugged at his bindings but that was useless, the rope was tight around his wrists and he couldn’t reach the metal circle on the wall.

Keep calm. Ragnar was…..Ragnar would come for him, wouldn’t he? Providing he hadn’t been killed of course, but Athelstan mentally shook his head to get rid of those unwanted thoughts.  Ragnar wouldn’t die in his own home fighting his own kind.

But it did not stop that panic from rising still.

Suddenly the door rattled, a lock being slid open, and in walked someone Athelstan knew but was surprised to see.  Earl Haraldson stood in the doorway, taking a long hard look at Athelstan before walking through, someone far taller and bigger walking in behind him and Athelstan’s eyes widened at the truly terrifying sight of the Viking man.

He was a head taller than the Earl, perhaps more, arms and neck thick with muscle, a strong jaw and dark eyes that immediately fell upon Athelstan and did not look away. Covered in various furs of dead animals and many tattoos along his forearms, the man stared at Athelstan in a way that made him feel _extremely_ uncomfortable. His long auburn hair hung wild around his shoulders, yet the man wore jewellery on his fingers and neck and ears that Athelstan assumed was only for those of a higher standing, like the Earl himself.  Perhaps this was another Earl then. A very wild one if he was.

Athelstan tried to look away from him, but those eyes tinged with an ominous smile bore through him like nails, fixing his eyes in one position. All he was able to do was glance at the half-moon shaped scar on the man’s right cheek before meeting his eyes again, trying to keep his breathing steady.

What was going on?

Ragnar…

 “So, do we have an agreement?” Haraldson asked the man, but the beast still did not look away from Athelstan.

Without a word he walked up to him, Athelstan trying not to look like he was genuinely afraid before the man grabbed his chin in his large hand, holding it tightly making Athelstan flinch at the sudden movement.  He tipped his head from side to side, eyes narrowing, before asking;

“You are the priest from the Christian land to the West, is that correct?”

With his chin and cheeks held tightly between the man’s fingers, Athelstan could only slightly nod. Gazing at him a little longer the man suddenly moved his other hand and cupped Athelstan between the legs. The shocked squeak and sharp intake of breath that escaped him seemed to please the man, and though Athelstan cursed himself for immediately feeling a traitorous heat reach his cheeks he looked to the Earl standing to one side with some measure of pleading in his eyes, but the Earl’s stern business-like expression had not changed.

“You wish to inspect him further?” Haraldson asked, Athelstan awkwardly trying to look anywhere but at the two sets of eyes on him, failing in not letting out small half gasps as the man fondled him as though a pleasant past-time hobby.

These reactions were definitely pleasing the man.  He smiled at Athelstan, a smile full of wicked teeth, “I have already inspected everything I needed to when he was unconscious.” Athelstan’s eyes widened in a sickening unwanted suspicion at the dark overtone that low voice held, and he was suddenly very aware again of that slightly salty taste in his mouth.

The man ran one thumb across Athelstan’s jaw where he held him, “I am Earl Einar, and I am your new master….slave.” He let his jaw go and turned back to Haraldson, “It is agreed.”

The next few moments happened so fast, at least to Athelstan, who was still trying to process the exact meaning behind this…Earl Einar’s words, part of him telling himself he did not want to know and trying to block any examination of the words.  He was released from his rope, Einar taking the end and leading him out of the room and up some steps.  It turned out he was in Haraldson’s home, in a room under the main hall where he gathered the men and women from his villages for various meetings. It was empty now.

Pulled outside he was thrown towards what he assumed was the men that had travelled with this new Earl, the end of his rope tied to the saddle of a light brown horse.  A second rope was tied tightly around his neck and tied to the saddle as well.  A small chest was given to Earl Haraldson, one that rattled with gains, and then Einar turned and stepped up onto the same horse not giving Athelstan a single glance.

Athelstan looked around desperately, looking to the village people mingling around them to see if he recognised any of them. Leif, Arne…Ragnar….anyone, but no one even looked at him.  The payment and dispatch of a slave seemed to be an entirely normal thing, and everyone went around their normal daily routines.

He was cold standing here wearing nothing over chest.

“Come slave,” Einar said, taking his horses reign as his men around him mounted their own steads, “You have an extremely long walk ahead of you.”

A murmur of laugher rattled around him and Athelstan was jerked forward as the horse suddenly moved, forcing him to walk quickly to keep up with it, the rope pulling at his wrists and neck. He took more one look around him, anyone, please _, see him_. But nothing. He stumbled slightly on some lose earth but managed to stay standing, which was good, because he felt that if he fell this Earl would not stop to let him stand again.

He thought back to the day Ragnar had pulled him by rope past his fellow monks, hanging outside on display, tortured and dead. That was how slaves were truly treated in this Pagan land, is that how he would end up with this Earl? Tortured, bloody, left for dead?

He suddenly had a grateful understanding of how lucky had been to be kept by Ragnar.

_Oh Lord in heaven…please…help me._

_Ragnar…_

* * *

 

Athelstan should have been nowhere near as light as he was when Ragnar cut the ropes free from his wrists and neck and scooped him into his arms, hooking one arm under his knees and the other around his shoulders. His sudden burst of tears at the final emotional relief had exhausted what very little strength he had left, and almost as soon as they had started the tears had stopped, eyes closing dropping into an immediate dark sleep void of nightmares for the first time in far too long. His head lolloped over Ragnar’s arm as the Viking stood, so Lagertha gently tucked it to his shoulder, ignoring the slight glistening in her own eyes as she placed a large fur skin over his bare body where Ragnar held him. He looked young, younger than before, so deathly pale in the flickering light as his sleeping bruised face absently pressed itself closer to Ragnar’s shoulder, leaning towards the first welcoming warmth he’d felt in months.

With a silent nod to his wife Ragnar turned, strangely silent, the others following as he walked through the door out of the large dining area they’d found Athelstan in, down a short corridor to the main entrance and the front door.  There were a few dead men on the floor here, blood soaking into the furs on the ground, as well as a large thickly muscled Viking by the door, slouched against the wall with his eyes open and a gushing axe shaped hole in his chest, a few ribs sticking out of the flesh as he sat in a pool of his own ever flowing blood.  Ragnar paused here and looked down at the man, looked down at the half-moon shaped scar on his right cheek before turning to Floki behind him.

“Burn it down.”

With a final glance Ragnar walked through the open entrance, door flat on the ground, the others taking an equal look at the dead Viking.  Floki looked especially longer, the last in the group to leave the house as he studied the man they had come here to kill. He smiled at him, squeaked out a tiny crazy little giggle before his demeanour changed entirely, the smile gone, eyes narrowed, and he spat on the dead man’s face.  As he walked out the door without a look back he threw the flaming torch he held to the wall, where it immediately set alight the wall hangings and straw.

Ahead of him Ragnar had placed Athelstan onto the back of a cart, Leif readying two of the four horses they had rode here on and attaching their harnesses to the cart, climbing into the seat.  While Floki mounted one of the other two horses keeping the seconds reign in hand to take them both back home, Lagertha climbed into the cart and without a word knelt by Athelstan’s head, carefully lifting the priests head so it rested on her knees.

Ragnar was the last to climb in, fetching a pail of water from the well the cart stood next to.  As soon as he was on Leif set the cart in motion, Floki alongside, travelling through the darkness back towards the Lothbrok home.  They had a long night to travel.

The firelight from the burning building reflected in Ragnar's eyes as they pulled away, watching the flames dance higher into the black sky, but he cared not for looking upon that place any longer. He sat by Athelstan's side as the cart rattled along, placing a cup into the pail of water and giving a nod to Lagertha, who so very tenderly lifted Athelstan's head again, caressing one side of his head with her thumb.

"Athelstan." Ragnar said softly, placing the cup at the priests dry lips, "Drink, it is water." Part asleep part unconscious part exhausted and part finally  _safe_ , somewhere in that mess of a mind Athelstan's brain registered the cool touch of water, and though his eyes did not open his sore throat found the strength to pull that liquid down, letting Ragnar tip the cup against his lips. He coughed and spluttered a little when he tried to drink too much, almost forgetting the taste and need for fresh, clean water, but Ragnar simply wiped away that which dribbled down his chin, and let him continue to drink.

It was in doing so that Ragnar truly realised that despite the horrifying appearance his priest held Athelstan only barely had any stubble, let alone a beard.  There were small but many signs of cuts along his jaw and neck, from the looks of it where someone had quickly cut away the hair that grew.

Ragnar suspected the reasoning behind this, though the thought made his rage begin to boil again, especially when he noticed several clumps of Athelstan's hair stuck together, and not by blood or sweat.

When Athelstan finished drinking, his head nestling between Lagertha's knees again, Ragnar took a cloth to the pail, ringing it out before wiping gently at Athelstan's face.  He had thought he was pale before, but wiping away the filth proved he was even paler than any of them had thought. Almost as white as the snow on the mountain tops, months of being kept inside in a constant state of terror and starvation. He was so thin.

Ragnar wiped at those clumps of hair, unable to stand the look, washing it from knowledge.

He cleaned around the black eye and the bruises on his cheekbones, the cuts from where he’d been hit by a fist wearing rings, then moving the fur that lay upon him down just a little bit he soaked up more water in the cloth, before squeezing it over the red raw rope mark around his neck.  Athelstan stirred at this, Ragnar gently dabbing at the fresh and dried blood mixed together there.

Athelstan’s lips parted in his sleep, moving as if trying to form words.  Ragnar leant forward close to listen, keeping his eyes fixed on his face and wishing he had made that man suffer more than just an axe to the chest.

“What is it?” Ragnar urged in a whisper, Athelstan’s lips still trying to move.

“...re….mem…….do not………remem…ber…” His voice was barely audible above the sound of the cart, each fragment of word said in a slow breathy sigh.

“What is it you do not remember?”

“…….uh……the words…the words…do not……...”

His brow creased as though in terrible sadness, then he was gone again. Ragnar sat up straight, glancing up at Floki riding beside them who was watching everything intently, then looking to his wife.  Nothing was said between them, but nothing needed to be.  Athelstan would never be the same naïve little priest again, and when he regained his senses, realised in detail everything that had happened to him, who was to say he would want to remain a man who remembered.

Ragnar wanted to know, he wanted to know _everything_ Athelstan had been through, wanted to hear it from the priests lips even though he knew it would slowly kill him to re-live it all.  There was no reason for him to know, the man who had done all this to Athelstan was dead, but he wanted to know, he _needed_ to know.  Why? Because he wanted to feel the twisting rising knot of his own agony in his chest, to torture himself on behalf of the torture his priest has been through.  Because this was his fault, the man he had wanted for his knowledge and a then genuine budding friendship had been stolen because Ragnar had been careless. He needed to know what Athelstan had been through so he could tell himself over and over again that it was his fault. It was his fault.  These bruises.  His fault.  This blood.  His fault.  This abuse.  His fault.  Those tears. HIS FAULT!

Ragnar brought his fist down hard against the side of the cart making Floki’s horse jump in shock.

Still no one said a word.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

It had been two weeks and Ragnar hadn’t come.

The journey to Earl Einar’s land should have taken only a day’s ride, but deliberately going at a walking pace had tripled the length of the journey.  There seemed no reason for this slow speed other than to see Athelstan suffer as he walked for the Earl’s amusement.  No stops, no rest, only when the Earl and his men decided to camp for the nights did Athelstan drop like a stone to the ground, gasping for water, feet sore and blistered. 

Still, no matter how many times he’d come close Athelstan was proud that he had never fallen once, no matter how much he’d wanted to, no matter how much his knees wanted to buckle beneath him, no matter how much on the third day were his wrists and neck bleeding from being permanently tugged forward by the ropes.

But it had been two weeks now, and Ragnar still hadn’t come for him. Had he been killed after all?

No…………….. _no_.

Unlike under Ragnar’s service Athelstan desperately wanted to escape from this man.  He’d been given a very thin shirt to wear over his bare chest but his wrists and neck had never been released from the ropes. The end of the rope around his neck was now hooked through the tall ceiling rafters of the Earl’s large dining area far out of reach, pinned down along the wall through hoops to limit his movement from the wall to the Earl’s chair and little further.  He hadn’t seen the light of day since he was brought in here, there was a chamber pot for him to use to one side so there was no need for him to be taken out of the room. He was just tied, to the same spot.

A long thick pine table filled most of the room, one Einar ate at every night but never alone, and never with family. Athelstan knew the man had a wife and two young sons, he’d seen them standing by the entrance when he’d been marched into the house, but he got the feeling Einar was not particularly a family man.  Heirs, that’s all his family was. Einar ate with other men, visiting guests, men from the surrounding villages talking of daily tales and of raids to the East, it was different people every night.

So far Athelstan hadn’t been exactly harmed any more than the ropes chaffing against his skin, though the food he ate was only the leftovers of the feasts, thrown to him on the floor like a dog, sometimes meat with bite marks already in them.  If the Earl’s wolfhounds were brought in during the feast Athelstan would get no food at all, any scraps thrown to the floor were gone within seconds and no one seemed to notice or care if they did.

He’d just sit, in silence, watching all the fresh food disappear.

During the middle of the feasts or when the conversation was going dry the Earl would tug Athelstan forward to the table, the smell of ale on his breath, laugh and order him to tell stories to his guests of the false God he believed in. As horrible as it was to hear a room of men laughing scornfully as he told his most precious tales from the Gospel of John, Athelstan never argued against the Earl’s request.  He hadn’t been harmed, but only yet.  There was a darkness to this mans eyes that never left him when he looked at Athelstan, a sixth sense that if he didn’t co-operate in every way he may end up like the slave girl who had tried to escape on his 5th day here.

The girl had been young, probably younger than him though she looked ragged and permanently terrified.  She was one Athelstan had seen a couple of times bringing plates of food to the Earl, one who had bruises on her pale face and bare arms, thin with straggled hair hanging in limp clumps.  He’d been asleep on the cold stone flooring under a pointlessly thin blanket when the sound of barking dogs and shouting voices outside had awoken him.  He listened in the darkness before a scream of agony left the girl with an unmistakable ripping of flesh from the growling ravenous wolfhounds. 

Athelstan had remained very still, eyes wide and heart caught in his throat as he was subjected to the girls torturous cries.  The men were laughing joyfully.  He whispered silent prayers that the girl would die quickly, please, don’t let her suffer any more, but just as her screams suddenly stopped and Athelstan went to breathe out a shaken sigh, there were footsteps going past the dining hall door.  They were dragging the girl, who was whimpering and struggling for breath, _alive_ , gurgling blood escaping her throat. Athelstan held his breath without even realising, listening as her distant sounds disappeared behind a door, the Earl’s voice sounding out, “Fuck what is left of her, then cut off her hands and feet and hang her outside.”

Athelstan had always been wary and worried about being here from the start, but this was the first time he had felt genuinely afraid. He could feel his very soul shrivel into a tight trembling ball as the Earl _thankyoulordohthankyou_ walked past his door leaving him in silence, trying not to imagine what was happening not so far from where he lay. Occasionally a muffled scream would meet his ears through the walls, but mostly it was simply silence.

That was why no matter how desperate he was to escape, Athelstan did not attempt it.

Ragnar….

He didn’t know how many hours he’d lain there awake, staring into the darkness, but when sleep finally found him he had his first nightmare that night, one that contained images he did not wish to live again in reality and which left him in a cold sweat in the morning. This was why the next day when the Earl asked Athelstan for a story he suddenly became a lot more descriptive and enthusiastic in his storytelling.

After two weeks Athelstan wondered if this was to be his only purpose, to remain sitting on the stone floor by the wall in silence unless called upon for a tale.  He prayed every night that Ragnar would come for him, prayed that he and Lagertha and the children were all well and unharmed. An annoying buzzing thought had begun a few days ago that perhaps Ragnar didn’t care that Athelstan had been taken and wasn’t going to come for him, but he squashed that thought with more prayer, drowning out that doubting buzzing at the back of his mind.  They were…sort of friends, weren’t they? Ragnar had trusted him to look after his children, the rope around his neck hadn’t been there for long, he’d never mistreated him and….Ragnar needed him, even if it was only for information about England he was useful to him, he’d spared him for that reason after all so it made no sense to……….....to leave him here…….

Athelstan’s eyes shot open when the door to the dining hall suddenly flew open and Einar walked in. He’d only been dozing huddled under his small blanket, which felt like it kept more cold against his skin than retaining any warmth, mind too busy with thought and skin too cold to properly sleep.

He watched silently as Einar lit a few candles on the table, ignoring Athelstan, flopping down in his fur covered chair with a large mug of ale and a heavy sigh, pushing the chair back at an angle scrapping across the floor so it faced a little towards his new slave.

He sat there for almost ten minutes, gradually downing his drink and staring into the candle light, before his eyes turned to Athelstan who had not removed his own cautious gaze from him since he walked into the room. He had never been alone with Einar before, there were always guests or other slaves (ones instructed to disregard Athelstan aside from a bowl of murky looking water every now and then), so this felt very worrisome. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like that dark look again.

“Priest.  Come here.”

Einar had never once asked Athelstan’s name. Pushing aside his pathetic blanket Athelstan rose to his feet, taking the five or so steps it took to stand in front of the Earl, a distance his rope would allow little further.

“I have had a tiring and irritable day.” The Earl placed his mug of ale on the table then casually continued, “Make yourself useful and suck on my cock, I need to relax before heading to bed.”

Athelstan felt his entire body freeze where he stood. His mind immediately raced, blood pounding in his ears, thoughts of disbelief, wanting to have mis-heard, sickening twisting panic _thinkofsomethingexcusewhatnocannotno_ …..

His lips parted again and again, trying to find a word, trying to calculate his options all in a single split second, but all that came out was a rather pitiful sounding; “W-what?”

Einar finally met his eyes, staring him down with a slightly raised eyebrow, half amused and half looking like he wanted to hit Athelstan for not immediately getting on his knees. He widened his legs for emphasise.

“Kneel there.  Open your mouth.  Suck on my cock. _Slave_.”

He couldn’t he….he couldn’t move, he wouldn’t move, no, this was all kinds of wrong and indecent and he was a _Monk_ didn’t this heathen understand this was….

He absently took a small step backwards, a mistake he was sure to never make again.

At the movement Einar quickly leant forward and grabbed the rope, pulling Athelstan down by his neck with a sharp yank. His knees hit the stone flooring hard and found his face pressed against the inner left thigh of the Earl, face towards his crotch, the mans hand spread across his skull keeping his head pressed there firmly. Athelstan flinched and squirmed trying to pull his head away, but the effort was futile.

“I tell you to do something, you do it.” Einar breathed hard in his ear, “No questions, no hesitations, and definitely no backing away.”

With his other hand he released his already semi-hard cock from his trousers and forced Athelstan’s face against it, the priests automatic gasp of disgust all he needed to shove it down his throat.  Athelstan immediately gagged. The salty taste, the musky smell, the burning humiliation. His thoughts turned to begging God for forgiveness but he didn’t want to think of God, he didn’t want to think of him looking at this sordid disgusting act.  He struggled but the Earl kept a painfully tight grip on his hair as he forcefully moved his head back and forth, ignoring Athelstan’s need to breathe as he kept one hand on the rope pulling it tighter around his neck every time he tried to squirm away.

“Relax your mouth or I will strangle you where you kneel. And use your tongue.”

Tears gathered at the corners of Athelstan’s eyes as he complied, he had no choice, he needed to breathe, he tried to breathe around the cock raping his mouth for it didn’t seem the Earl was going to stop. He gagged everytime, the fully hard member now hitting the back of his throat each time his head was forced down.  He didn’t know what the man meant by use his tongue but just so the rope would loosen a little he flattened it against the hardness, horrified by his own actions and praying that it was the sort of thing the Earl wanted.  Just get it over with, please, he felt sick, he felt disgraced, he kept his eyes firmly closed not wanting to know of the look on the Earl’s face, not wanting to acknowledge what was being done to him.

Why……please…. _stop…._

“Good….good…” he heard the Earl breathe quite satisfactorily above him, “I hear in the place you worshiped your false God that there were no women.  I cannot imagine such a place.  You play the innocent very well but I bet you sucked many a priest cock, didn’t you?”

Athelstan was mortified beyond belief at such a suggestion, and in the distraction of his sickening anger, his eyes flying open to glare venomous daggers at the Earl, his concentration slipped and his teeth closed just a little bit, enough to scrap along the sensitive skin as his head was being pulled up.

 The Earl howled in pain, the anger in Athelstan’s eye immediately replaced with sudden fear at what he’d done as he was thrown away to one side.  Without hesitation the Earl stormed from his chair, grabbed a fist full of Athelstan’s shirt forcing him to kneel up and then brought his fist down hard on the right side of his head. He hammered down on him, again and again and again, pounding knuckles against his cheekbones and skull, the rings on the Earls fingers leaving sliced bloody marks across his cheek.

When he was finished he let go of the shirt, Athelstan falling to the ground in a heap, blood spluttering from his mouth, somehow still conscious though only barely, a tooth disappearing into the small thick pool of blood falling from his lips.

The Earl was panting, straightening his own clothes as he flicked Athelstan’s beaten face upwards with the toe of his boot, the priest twitching where he lay. “You will learn, and co-operate, slave, or I will hurt you in more ways than you or your God could possibly imagine.” He then ran the tip of his boot against the small rough beard Athelstan had grown in the two weeks he’d been here. “And we are going to get rid of this.  I do not like the feel of it against my balls.”

In a haze of pain he’d never been through before Athelstan passed out shortly after the Earl left, no thoughts able to pass through the agony beating through his skull. By the morning he could barely open his right eye, the entire right side of his head and face throbbing excruciatingly painfully.  Hugely swollen and black, it was a bruise that would never get a chance to fully heal while he was imprisoned here.

It was also the first day he didn’t speak to God.

 

* * *

 

They had thought about taking him down to the water’s edge, to bathe him and clean him that way, but with his skin like ice even after being wrapped in a warm fur during the journey back home, they thought better of it.

Walking past Arne who was sitting in the Earl’s grand chair, to whom Ragnar had instructed to look after the house and Hall when they’d left, Lagertha had ordered Gyda out of eyes sight when they had returned. She did want her to see the state of the priest she had grown so fond of and told her to go and cook some food for him instead. Under his fathers orders Bjorn had gone to collect more firewood with Arne, while Lagertha hurriedly brought more furs and blankets into the bedroom that had once belonged to Earl Haraldson, now her and Ragnar’s room, and where Ragnar had now laid their tormented priest on a pile of plush blankets on the floor right next to the burning fire. Leif and Floki appeared every now and then with water, pouring it into the large pot over the fire to heat it.  Athelstan had to be cleaned, but not with freezing water.

Athelstan was drifting in and out of consciousness in a mild delirium.  Every time he was vaguely awake he’d mumble that same sentence, that he didn’t remember, the words, the words, over and over, the occasional tear leaking from the corner of his eye before he’d fall asleep once more. Most of the time though he was unconscious, which Ragnar was thankful for as he and Lagertha took to the task of cleaning him.  He‘d already had so much done to him by cruel hands, in the state he was in if he felt any more upon him he may lash out and hurt himself. He needed to be calm and still, and preferably not realise he was being touched everywhere yet again.

It took a long time to not only clean his skin but to tend to his wounds.  Everywhere they looked there were marks, scars, fresh bloody injuries.  Floki stopped in the fetching of water every now and then to suggest something with herbs, disappearing for a while searching around the old Earl’s large house for the herbs he would have kept at home.  At one point he squatted down next to Athelstan and picked up his broken hand, examining it carefully.

“Will he ever be able to use it again?” Lagertha asked him quietly as she gently washed Athelstan’s unruly hair, removing the general filth and remains of his violation.

Floki tried to straighten one of the bent fingers, but Athelstan groaned in his sleep, frowning in pain, so Floki clucked his tongue as he thought, “They will have to be broken again. Fixed, set straight, and then to heal. But I do not know if it would be enough, they have been more than broken, they have been crushed, and more than once.”

Lagertha turned her downcast eyes to her husband, but Ragnar wasn’t looking at either of them.  His face was expressionless, just set in his task of cleaning, ever so gently wiping the warm wet cloth down the inside of his priest’s bruised thighs. He was not looking forward to knowing the state of him when they turned him onto his front and he cleaned between his buttocks. He could already see the dried blood across his genitals.

Bjorn then walked into the room with more firewood, Ragnar immediately sending him out as soon as he’d taken it, Bjorn’s eyes widening at the priest on the floor, Floki pushing him out the door quickly.

When they did turn him over the whelps on his back were vicious and quite fresh, it must have only been a few days ago when this attack was set upon him, though the scared marks of earlier whippings could be seen between them. With Floki’s help they tended to those wounds using water with herbs, wrapping bandages around his back and chest  and wrists and soft ones around his neck to help keep out infection.

No one looked at Ragnar as he cleaned the part he’d been dreading.  Lagertha glanced up only once, seeing her husbands teeth clench and that fierce fire returning to his eyes. It was the same look he’d had when he’d cleaved Earl Einar’s ribs with his axe, a look now returned when removing red-stained cloth from between Athelstan’s legs.

Their little priest, lost in a part of their culture neither of them had wanted him to see, let alone be trapped inside. Under any normal situation they would not have condoned what Einar had done, it was something done to thousands of slaves all the time, it was normal for those captured in battle to be abused, but this was different.  This was _their_ priest, their friend, _stolen_ under their very eyes, tortured, obviously raped, crushed in every possible way.  The innocence, the nativity, the bright eyes that looked upon their world with such interest, it would all be gone. Athelstan would never be the same gentle sweet man that he was before. Never.

With everything cleaned and wounds tended to as best as they could, Ragnar picked him up and placed him amongst the blankets and furs on their bed, wrapping them around him like a cocoon,  head and shoulders resting slightly up upon a pile of soft coverings. Ragnar brushed his clean damp hair away from his face and took a moment to look at that horrid bruise around his eye. He touched it gently.

“That is two Earl’s you have killed within the same number of days.” Floki suddenly pointed out, a small curl to his lips as he stood at the base of the bed. “I do not wish to be the one to point this out but you have a lot to do Earl Ragnar, you cannot be around the priest every hour of every day.  Leave him to us,” he said, looking towards Lagertha who nodded without removing her gaze from Ragnar’s fingertips, “we will take care of him.”

Ragnar remained silent for a moment, before stepping away from the bed towards the door not looking at Floki, “First I will get him to eat.”

Gyda may have still been young but like her mother she was very good at cooking, and had been boiling some fresh vegetables and cooking a large piece of chicken over the fire from the freshly slaughtered and carved one that Bjorn was currently organising the remains of.

“Can I see him father?” Gyda asked quietly as soon as Ragnar entered, but Ragnar didn’t reply, just put the chicken and vegetables into a bowl and took it back into their room.

He walked past Floki who was now leaving, having sensed that his need to help had now passed, Leif already sitting with Arne in the Hall talking quietly about what had happened on their journey. Floki placed a hand on Ragnar’s chest to stop him as they passed each other, looking at him directly.

“Tomorrow is a new day for you Ragnar, do not forget that. It is also a new and different man lying in your bed.”

With that remark Floki and the others left, leaving Ragnar and Lagertha to try and gently coax their priest awake.   Lagertha stroked his hair softly, whispering tender words against his cheek to frighten away the delirium while Ragnar tore the chicken into smaller bite size pieces.

The chicken was only lukewarm by the time Athelstan awoke, his deep blue eyes flickering open to the warm and familiar faces surrounding him. He lay there, tucked in against warm soft coverings, eyes a little glazed but turning from one face to another, from Lagertha’s gentle smile to Ragnar’s fierce features now relaxed and almost boyish in trying to look unthreatening.

It was unclear to either of them if he recognised them, he just seemed to stare at them, brow creasing as he seemed to struggle with the fact that he was…was warm, that he knew these people, that this….….was this all….

“Dream?”

His voice was still so quiet, so rough, but Lagertha’s smile widened and she stroked across the top of his forehead, “No dream Athelstan, you are with us. You are safe.”

He frowned at her curiously, a tired frown where it was obvious in his eyes that he was trying to remember how to form words, “A…….Athelstan?”

Lagertha briefly glanced up at her husband, “Yes.”

“No one has…called me that, for…” he trailed off, blinking slowly before turning his head to look down passed Lagertha at the strong fire giving him so much warmth.  He stared at it for a moment before looking up at Ragnar. “I…wanted….” He paused for a long time, pupils dipping in and out of focus, before finally he blinked rapidly, the glaze in his eyes not as prominent as when he first awoke, and this time a frown of recognition crossed his brow. 

He tried to lift his head, “…Ragnar?”

Ragnar smiled warmly, sitting down at the edge of the bed with his bowl of food, “Hello Athelstan.”

Although it was clear Athelstan was still not quite in touch with his reality, the memories of his ordeal perhaps locked behind his own protective wall while his mind tried to come to terms with the fact he was awake and safe, he was at least not thrashing out which they feared he would do.  Perhaps that would still come later when his mind relaxed and the wall would begin to crumble.

Ragnar took a mug of water from the table next to the bed and brought it to Athelstan’s lips, Athelstan not removing his gaze from the man he had done nothing but pray would come for him, dreamt of him coming for him……. _pleaded_ he would come for him…………..cried while he was being.......Ragnar....…. _pleasegodstophimragnarhelpmepleasearghuughplease **help**_ …..

Athelstan flinched violently, Ragnar quickly moving the mug away while Lagertha pressed harder against Athelstan’s forehead, stroking her fingers across his skin shhhing him gently and calmly as his eyes darted and blinked rapidly looking at nothing but memory, fear flashing across his face.

“Do you think there is much point in trying to get him to eat something?” Ragnar asked his wife, who simply looked at him with unhappy eyes. Their priest was so thin, so very weak, he had to eat something if he could.  Who knew when he’d be lucid enough to understand.

“Athelstan.” Ragnar tried his name, those darting eyes slowly calming at the sound and once more turning to look at him, “I have some food.  Gyda has cooked it for you, you remember Gyda? It is chicken,” he held up a small piece for him to see, “see? Here, you need to regain your strength.” He brought the piece cautiously to Athelstan’s lips.

The reaction to this neither of them would have expected.

Athelstan suddenly screamed, his hands flying up from where they were tucked under the covers and pushing Ragnar’s hand far away from his face and then shielding it with his arms, “NO! NO PLEASE I CAN’T! NO MORE PLEASE I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE!” Tears came out of nowhere, streaming down his face as he struggled with energy he should not have had to try and get away.  Lagertha held him down by his shoulders, Athelstan still screaming in her ear as she turned to Ragnar.

“Get out!” She yelled at him, “He has been at the cruel hands of men for six months, perhaps it is better I try to get through to him first!”

Athelstan was struggling desperately underneath her, begging, _pleading_ for ‘him’ to stop, so with a quick yet hesitant nod to her Ragnar left the room.

It was almost 20 minutes before Athelstan screamed himself hoarse, finally being quiet as Lagetha’s still continued gentle shh’s tried to calm him completely.  Ragnar sat outside the door with Gyda in his lap resting his chin on her hair, every now and then kissing the top of her head.  Bjorn had disappeared outside, unable to stand the noise.

An hour later Lagertha emerged from the bedroom, “He is sleeping now.”

At this news Ragnar lifted Gyda from his lap, “Go on, to bed with you now, you’ve waited to make sure he was alright.”

“Can I not see him now?” she asked hopefully, looking up at her parents who exchanged a sad knowing smile between them.  Lagertha knelt down to her level, cupping her face with her hands.

“When something very bad has happened to someone, they can change, and he might thrash out and hurt you.”

“But it’s Athelstan.” Gyda argued, “He would not hurt anybody.”

“He would not intentionally hurt you Gyda, but right now he might. You will just have to be patient, wait for him to recover a little more.”

“But I have missed him.”

Lagertha smiled at her daughter’s kind innocence, “We all have Gyda, but now we must wait.”

Very reluctantly Gyda disappeared to her own new bedroom. Once alone Ragnar took Lagertha’s hands in his own and kissed the back of one of them, “I wonder why he would not eat.”

It had been a question he could not stop asking himself, why food could have brought on such an attack of violent memory.

“I do not know, but do not force him Ragnar.  Let his body and mind realise where he is.”

Ragnar nodded, then looked to their bedroom door, “I will take first watch.  And do not worry, if he wakes I shall fetch you first.” He smiled lightly at her.

He had so many questions, and so now as he sat on a chair at the foot of the bed, watching his sleeping priest, he wondered what else might trigger an attack.  What other simple things had been perverted into cruelty? How was _food_ even make into something cruel in the first place?

It was some hours later, still unable to look away from Athelstan, that the door creaked open.  Seeing the small hand of his daughter appear around the edge of the door Ragnar leant back in his chair and feigned sleep, watching through one half closed eye as Gyda quietly entered, suddenly freezing at seeing her father there.  Thinking he was asleep, she very slowly snuck forward towards the bed. In her hand she held a necklace she had made out of seashells, all looped together down a cord, and she placed it next to Athelstan’s head.  She paused for a moment, looking at the bruised face before her, before she leant forward and kissed him softly on the cheek.

“I am glad you’re home Athelstan.” She whispered, before just as quietly she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Athelstan turned in his sleep, his nose just touching the necklace, and for the first time Ragnar suddenly found himself cursing the Gods for delaying his search for his stolen priest.

The stolen member of his family.

 


End file.
